Chagall: Modern Master (Tate Gallery, Liverpool: Exhibition Catalogues)

Though his paintings of Russian village life, floating figures, flying cows, and roosters are instantly familiar, Marc Chagall (1887–1985) remains one of the least understood artists of his generation. Bringing together more than 60 paintings and a selection of works on paper, this lavishly illustrated book focuses on the artist’s time in Paris before World War I, his visit to Berlin and his exhibition there in 1914, and the years he spent in his native Russia around the time of the Revolution in 1917, all experiences that reinforced his highly personal visual language. The timeless themes of these early works—including love, suffering, and death—formed the core of his art for the remainder of his long career. Although Chagall promoted an image of himself as a loner and intuitive genius, in reality he was acutely aware of avant-garde artistic developments. This book, which accompanies a major international exhibition, demonstrates Chagall’s shift from “naive” folkloristic narratives toward an integration of Fauve, Cubist, Expressionist, and Suprematist styles, through which he articulated his native Jewish Russian culture.